Wednesday, 26 September 2018

protons - Is there a mathrmp0 particle?


In the following equation of a reaction


p0+nK++Σ


What is the quark composition of the p0 particle? Or is it supposed to be ρ0?


Photo from textbook


For me it certainly looks more like p, not ρ.


(Source: K. A. Tsokos, Physics for the IB Diploma, Sixth Edition, Cambridge University Press)



Answer



It looks like a typo for ρ0+nK++Σ

where ρ0 is the uncharged member of the isospin triplet with mass 770 MeV. According to the particle data group, the quark content of the light, unflavored mesons with isospin I=1 is uˉd,(uˉudˉd)/2,dˉu.



You can tell that your "p" must be a meson, not a baryon, because both sides of the reaction must have the same baryon number, and the baryon number on the right side is +1.


Commenters on a duplicate question point out that it may also by a typo for π0, if the printer's software produces the character "π" using the same code point as "p" but in some other typeface. Like the ρ, the π also has zero baryon number and unit isospin; however the pion is spinless while the rho is a spin-one "vector" meson.


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